Some context: I leave Helena to do what she will with her day. I am attempting to see what she will independently do. I don’t tell her this but after a while every time the alarm goes she says “ask me what I’m doing mummy”… I want to know how long she sustains a period of engagement in her self assigned “tasks” and how many “tasks” she does in a day.

9:00 Helena is playing with Playmobil, something about a dungeon, lots of relationship details between the characters -grandfather getting the children, some potion got knocked over but some one rescued it as they went past…

9:15 still playing the game but an arrangement of DVDs has been added

9:30 reading KCC magazines, but possibly the characters are doing that

9:45 in a chair in the sun porch writing in her notebook in code

10 still there

10:15 and still there still writing (we’ve had a conversation about the code my sister and I used for years but it wasn’t as good as hers!) … I’ve had a shower and a coffee!!

10:30 folding up the messages and putting them in a basket (they ended up thrown as a spray in the air)

10:45 climbing a tree and singing, a song about the bee she was watching

11 still up a tree asking me to help her down but actually staying up there singing and talking a lot about the blossoms, bees, spring etc

11:15 doing something with flowers in a bucket, followed by washing shells

11:30 opening the air drying clay she has gone and got to finish setting up to make stuff

11:45 making – using air drying clay and the shells, she is pleased with her scoring and sticking bits on

12 talking to the neighbor with me but trying to get me to come to help (she has made a lid and is asking for help with the bowl due to frustration with the shells and cracking edges)

12:15 still working on the project with the clay and shells

12:30 gets up -hand washing etc for lunch

12:45 having lunch with her grandfather and talking about what she’s been doing

1 spreading jam on toast

1:15 having yet more toast (hollow legs today)

1:30 sticking shells into the left over bit of clay, slight beginnings of wanting my input… possibly because I told her about the left over drying up bit while she was doing something else

1:45 sitting with me (I’m gardening) and filling in her money book so that she will get pocket money on Monday, also helping and talking about the garden

2 watering the garden with her tiny watering can that she is fulling to the TOP

2:15 on the loo!

2:30 smashing shells with a hammer, having found a board so as not to damage the concrete, the shells are for her garden so the snails won’t be able to get to her plants – sharp edges of the shells

2:45 still shell smashing

3 still shell smashing but there is a very complicated set up with a que? and it’s the end of the “school day”

Some conclusions: she can focus on stuff she likes for a long time and will persevere until she is satisfied and finished, she likes to work close to others – she came out side because I was gardening. She does not need me to give her ideas of things to do..choice.. she managed to cover many different skills in a day.

Helena is very pleased with her shell treasure box – her plan is to paint it yellow like the sand (here we have qualified that it will be yellow like sand in books and like some sand) tomorrow. She plans to write a pedants cook book with a fly chapter – butterfly and I can’t remember the rest….